![](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/Sk4KP3xcwSI\/AAAAAAAAF00\/7Rb0GPSzrXE\/s320\/0E647179-DAA5-4192-B5953807D1F6BBFC.jpg\")
<\/a>“People have to rock and roll,” said Zaniolo, a 50-year-old Catholic priest. “Every second counts.”<\/p>\nFor the last nine years, Zaniolo has been hearing confessions and offering Mass to workers and travelers at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. It is a community bigger than most Chicago suburbs. Thirty-nine thousand people work there. Nearly 71 million passengers crossed its concourses last year.<\/p>\n
Along a quiet stretch of the mezzanine level, Zaniolo deals with a ministry of the moment: reassuring nervous fliers, praying with anxious workers, helping flight crews whose friends died in plane crashes.<\/p>\n
When it comes to flying, Zaniolo said, “there are few atheists in the air.”<\/p>\n
O’Hare is one of 32 airports in the U.S. with places set aside for worship, meditation or prayer.<\/p>\n
The interfaith chapel, which some call St. O’Hare, was opened in 1960. Protestant ministers hold Sunday services here. Jewish rabbis and Muslim imams meet with families waiting to receive a loved one’s remains.<\/p>\n
Between services, the chapel is kept bare of religious iconography. When Catholics come for daily Mass, the priests bring out a silver cross and a golden banner. When Muslims arrive for prayer, the imam pulls out prayer rugs and the Koran.<\/p>\n
The mainstay of the chapel is Zaniolo, president of the National Conference of Catholic Airport Chaplains. He and a team of local volunteer priests offer Mass at O’Hare once each weekday, twice on Saturdays and four times on Sundays.<\/p>\n
Their chapel is a small room, no bigger than a two-car garage. Rows of brown-cloth chairs sit before a low stage and a pair of flickering oil lamps. A glass wall looks out onto parked planes and luggage carts zooming across the tarmac.<\/p>\n
O’Hare has always been a part of Zaniolo’s life. He grew up in northwest Chicago, in the airport’s flight path, and would lie in the grass, watching planes crisscross the sky.<\/p>\n
He worked as an electrical engineer for four years, before entering the seminary in 1984. By 1988, he had graduated with a degree in theology and served as an associate pastor on Chicago’s northwest side. After a dozen years of working in different churches, he asked to become O’Hare’s chaplain.<\/p>\n
He’d become fascinated by the airport and the people in it after his predecessor led him and a church youth group on a tour.<\/p>\n
“I’m thinking, this is a cool job to have: to be a part of people’s lives in the place where they’re working, and to be a significant presence for the travelers,” Zaniolo said.<\/p>\n
Now, he makes a walking tour of the airport every day. “If they don’t come to the chapel, it’s up to me to go to them,” said Zaniolo, a short, gray-haired man with a quick wit and a patient attitude. O’Hare is so big it takes him a month to visit every location.<\/p>\n
Assaulted by the scent of stale coffee, the priest skirted around the crowds preparing for their flights.<\/p>\n
“How’s life, Father Mike?” asked a janitor emptying a trash can. Security guards at the X-ray machine smiled and wished him a good morning. So did a pair of businessmen waiting to have their luggage screened.<\/p>\n
Fear of flying rarely comes up in conversation these days. Instead, Zaniolo listens to worries about jobs, the economy and city budget cuts. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There’s much more at the link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is a busy travel weekend, but people passing through many airports across the country can find a quiet corner to stop and reflect and pray. (No, I’m not talking about Cinnabon or Hudson News.) Meet the priest who ministers to the flying flock at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport: In a small room above the crowds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n
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